Leaden Mathews leads SL nowhere
Far from a towering, inspiring, regal presence, Angelo Mathews just stood and watched as England steamrolled his side once again
At Headingley, Angelo Mathews won the toss and bowled. He walked out on the ground in front of his team, between the flag holders, and there was something regal about him. It stood out. It might have been the memory of the last time, it might have been his posture, or his focus, but he looked like a leader.
This is a man who plays his best cricket in big game situations, or when his team needs it the most. A man so proud he went out on a field in a shirt on which he had corrected the spelling of his own name. A man who through the era of Kumar and Mahela, still found ways to steal the show.
Mathews has just looked taller than his team-mates, he has stood out from the beginning.
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Mathews' captaincy on this tour hasn't been incredible. Nick Knight isn't rushing to his side to get a lesson on modern cricket tactics like he did with Brendon McCullum. Shane Warne is not using Mathews as a blunt instrument to beat Alastair Cook's captaincy with. And his captaincy in general isn't what the cricket hipsters are talking about. While MS Dhoni, McCullum and Michael Clarke's captaincies have become cricket fetish items, Mathews just does his thing.
Fielders are put in places, often not grouped too close together. Bowlers are brought on at fairly appropriate, and yet very predictable times. Five minutes to lunch he says, "hey Rangana, fancy an over?" In the funky captaincy era, it is a Donny Osmond record.
Mathews doesn't try to make things happen, he waits for things to happen. On a good day it makes him look like a calm leader who knows when to pounce. On a bad day it makes him look like a man who refuses to leave his car until the storm passes, oblivious to the fact the road is now a lake.
If his batting and captaincy were in the schoolyard together, the batting would mock the captaincy for being boring all lunchtime.
When Alex Hales and Jonny Bairstow started out their innings at Headingley on day two, Mathews greeted them with two slips. He might as well have delivered them cheese and an appropriate brandy.
He took that to a new level when Moeen Ali batted with Steve Finn at Chester-le-Street. Modern captains are well known to like the everyone-on-the-boundary fielding move when a batsman bats with the tail. But that tactic comes with certain rules. The main one being that at the end of the over, balls five and six, you bring the field in so the next over can start with the tailender on strike. If that stupid tactic is to work, you have to execute all of it, not just the first part.
Mathews took the only part of the bad tactic that made sense, and threw it away. If that tactic is what makes cricket fans head butt a wall, he set fire to the wall.
Sure his fielders had let him down, and he was already daydreaming about how his batsmen were about to let him down. But it was the lack of fight, the lack of vision, and at times, the lack of actual movement that was so shocking.
Mathews is one of the best cricketers Sri Lanka has ever produced but, with England nine down, he reduced himself to the guy who relayed the ball from keeper to bowler
Mathews was at cover for most of it. It isn't a short cover, it's in the ring, but he has decided to stop moving at all. For whole overs he takes less than 20 paces. He doesn't walk in with the bowler, he adopts the catching stance, despite the fact he might be the world's deepest catching cover. When a ball is dropped at the feet of the batsman, he jogs over, but he manages to make the jog slower than a walk, like he's on an invisible treadmill.
Another ball dribbles out to him with all the ferocity of a basket of kittens, and yet he still manages to fumble - it's a fielding yawn. Only when the ball is smashed at him do his natural athleticism and cricket senses switch back on and suddenly he is saving a boundary. Had that not occurred, he could have been replaced by a waxwork dummy and the game would have gone the exact same direction.
Like a pot plant in a crack den, the Test was still technically alive when England were nearing the end of their innings, but Sri Lanka refused to acknowledge that fact. Mathews had all but stopped moving. The field placements were from 20 minutes earlier. The bowling plans were non-existent. The innings could have gone on for decades to come. People would have visited the ground to see the never-ending sporting spectacle and marvel at its stillness.
Luckily England, who were frolicking along towards 500, decided that round-number totals are actually meaningless psychological missteps and, instead of pushing their way to the last few runs, they just put the Sri Lankans out of their misery. When the batting team is too bored to grind you into the dirt or reach their round-number declaration targets, something has gone horribly wrong.
When Sri Lanka batted, it kept going wrong. If time was standing still when they bowled, when they batted their batsmen were fast-forwarded into dismissals at breakneck pace. It is usually those times, when Mathews is at his best.
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Mathews doesn't look sure. He doesn't look right. His drive is a waft that connected. His forward defence is barely forward and unsuccessful as a defence. Then he pushes again. This time there is an edge, and it was time for him to simply walk off. First he looks at the pitch, as if the answers are there. Then he looks back down the track.
There is an unwritten, and not very trustworthy, rule that when a batsmen is given out caught behind, and they didn't hit it, they review straight away. Those who don't are hoping technology is in bad form.
Mathews didn't review straight away, he didn't even review just after that. He reviewed after walking down the wicket and having a chat with the non-striker. He reviewed so late that the third umpire could have given him out purely on hunch and no one would have blamed him.
Instead he used the technology, and Mathews used a review. In both situations he made a mistake, but that happens. What is worth was that in both situations he was unsure. He wasn't leading. He hasn't led at all. Not with bat, not with his two overs on day one, not in the field.
The only time he looks like the Angelo Mathews who won at Headingley last tour was when he sprung into life to take a hanging one-hander at slip. That was muscle memory; when his brain has been needed, he has been asleep.
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A team without its two best-performing bowlers is going to struggle. A team without its two best batsmen is going to struggle. They need their best player, their captain, to do something. Anything. Not stand around waiting for pity declarations, not pathetic wafts, and not half-hearted DRS mistakes.
This is a player who can pull victory from defeat, who has held Sri Lanka up for draws. Given them their most honourable defeats. And instead of inspiring, he's insipid.
This is a leaking team, they need leadership, if not through strategy, then from actions, if not actions, then from intent, if not from intent, then from Mathews picking up every single player and putting them on his back and fighting England on his own. He has achieved with athleticism, skill and intelligence some amazing things on the cricket field. This is one of the best cricketers Sri Lanka has ever produced but, for a while here, he reduced himself to the guy who relayed the ball from the keeper to the bowler while England were nine wickets down.
He was standing out because he was the only man within 50 metres of the batsmen. There he stood, not regal and tall, but tired and broken.
